Chris Hornbecker took on a rather unique project for 2008: He wanted to take a photograph each day using a focal length that was one millimeter more than the previous day’s photo. Starting at 14mm and working his way all the way up to 389mm, the project was called 1 Millimeter A Day, and definitely forced him to look at things from a different perspective.

Take a look through the archives to see what he created, because there’s definitely some inspiring stuff in there for anyone that spends their time behind the lens.

During an Australian vacation, I had a chance to stop by the Cookie Composites shop with a friend that’s an active skydiver so that he could pick up a new lens for his skydive helmet/camera rig.

Seeing this small company that operates on a global scale up close and personal really gave me an appreciation for their hands on approach and handmade quality. Each piece is made with precision and care, and they were happy to show us around even though we showed up at their door essentially unannounced.

In 2006, Cookie Composites decided to reshape their brand, and hired a team of media and advertisement specialists to develop the brand’s new values. During that time, Ricardo Sa Freire was brought on to develop a range of new helmets that would translate those new values into a signature shape for their new products, and he shared that process online.

The ROK helmet is what came out of that process, and it’s a helmet designed for swoop canopy divers and base jumpers, with air intakes in both sides that are used to measure the speed through the sound of the wind.

Since the process behind the end result is no less impressive than what they created, it’s a fantastic read that gives you a glimpse into the world and work of a real designer as he creates a product that is designed to look good, save lives, and function in some of the most extreme environments imaginable.

Kipp Wettstein makes his own large format cameras as part of what he calls The Camera Project.

The cameras are designed to suit Kipp’s “operational tendencies for the singular application of mobility”, and make a “simple, elegant and accurate method to connect the lens and film planes”.

The beauty of the design is that it is built around the elegant form of the image cone produced by the lens. Not only does this design yield an attractive camera but it is extremely accurate. The lens and film planes have a parallel accuracy within the fractions of a millimeter. These designs have no perspective-controlling movements. They are small, lightweight and extremely precise.

His latest, called the 8×10 Carbon/Aluminum, is a beautiful “portable, wide-angle camera using a molded carbon fiber cone attached to a body plate machined from a solid block of 7075-T651 aircraft aluminum”. The lens is a Schneider 165mm Super Angulon, and “at four pounds, its weight nearly matches that of the camera body”.

Want one?

He’ll make one for you (or at least take your inquiry about one), but keep in mind that “ultimately, large-format photography is a costly process”.

FILE Magazine is a collection of photographs that treat subjects in unexpected ways, creating new genres with alternate takes, odd angles, unconventional observations, and more, FILE isn’t Kodak, Vogue or ESPN, and it definitely isn’t a photoblog, photo challenge/contest, or group photo album. FILE is, however, a great place to go for inspiration, improvisation, and imagination. If you want to see the world through a different lens, check out what FILE has to offer, but be prepared for a perspective shift.